Oh, I just have to share. The other week in St. Louis we got dumped on. I had to go to work that night. I took it easy and got there in one piece. Only one lane was open on the highway. I had this assclown running up on me, flashing his lights, honking, etc. He made a couple of failed attempts to pass me, but there was really no way for him to pass. I was cruising about 30 (I was pacing myself behind the snow plow). As I exited, he got off with me, pulled up next to me, rolled own his window and accused my mom and I of incest, then floored it right through the red light. He tried to turn left and instead kept going straight into a guardrail. After the light changed, I went by nice and slow and gave him a little wave. What a waste of an Escalade.

I owned a couple of BMWs back in the day, and the owner's manual section on traction control had a big bolded statement as the first sentence: Traction control does not override the constraints posed by the laws of physics.

1) The 4X4 looks more like a mini-van.2) The 4X4 is spotlessly clean.3) The 4X4 is regularly parked in the suburbs.4) The 4X4 has an automatic lift gate or sliding side door.5) The 4X4 has personalized plates that do not appear to reference hunting.6) There are young children in the 4X4.7) There is no dog in the 4X4, or if there is a dog it is a poodle.8) There is a luggage carrier located somewhere on the 4X4, either atop it or on a small platform hooked to the back.9) When operating the 4X4 in normal conditions, the driver goes around speed bumps in parking lots.10) The person refers to his or her 4X4, which is not a pickup, as a "truck."

I thought I'd just chime in on what was one of the best days of my life. So I was driving in a really bad snowstorm and the roads were horrible, so I decided to drive slower in the interest of not getting into an accident. Well, some idiot just wasn't having that and decided that I was driving too slow and decided to ride my bumper; it looked like they were going to attempt to pass me when they spun out of control and ended up stuck in the ditch.

1) The 4X4 looks more like a mini-van.2) The 4X4 is spotlessly clean.3) The 4X4 is regularly parked in the suburbs.4) The 4X4 has an automatic lift gate or sliding side door.5) The 4X4 has personalized plates that do not appear to reference hunting.6) There are young children in the 4X4.7) There is no dog in the 4X4, or if there is a dog it is a poodle.8) There is a luggage carrier located somewhere on the 4X4, either atop it or on a small platform hooked to the back.9) When operating the 4X4 in normal conditions, the driver goes around speed bumps in parking lots.10) The person refers to his or her 4X4, which is not a pickup, as a "truck."

"Four-wheel drive can be useful in helping you get going and helping you gain traction when you're driving especially, for example, up big hills," Anderson says."But when it gets very slippery, you begin to have problems with traction."

Once I was driving on Route 30 near Bedford, PA. We had a very sudden snow storm drop about a foot of snow. The roads hadn't been plowed. I was in a line of cars going maybe 25 mph. A guy driving a red 4 wheel drive subaru wagon comes flying up behind me. He's blasting the horn and flipping us off for going so fast. We hit a straight stretch of road and he guns it and flies by all of us (probably 7-8 cars) while yelling and flipping us off. A few minutes later, we come around a bend and there he is standing beside his car which has the back end stuck in a ditch with the front wheels sticking up in the air. I pulled up and rolled down my window. I asked if he was OK. He said he was. I asked if he had a cell phone to call for help. He said he did. I said "This is what you get for driving like a dumbass". He said "I know, I know". Then I drove off laughing.

I see it every year in Canada. The guy most likely to get into an accident when it slows is usually driving an SUV and thinks putting it into 4wd means they can drive the same way as a dry day in summer.

For me 4wd is for getting up and down unplowed side streets in my area (which are all very hilly).

Yep, Idiots / people who don't know how to drive. 2 snowstorms in the past week. I have to take a country road on my way home. Most of the cars in the ditches where SUVs. Yet I have no problem with my 4 speed manual cobalt and bald tires. (well except for the #@$!@# driver side door that has now decided to not open)

realmolo:Well, anyone that owns an SUV is- by definition - a moron or a prick.

They're an essentially useless vehicle, and they screw up traffic for everybody else because they are so big.

/here come the "But firefighters need them!" and "I live on a hill so I need an SUV!" people

Oh, you don't have kids I see.

Useless for who? I have a 6 year old and 20-month old twins. When we go on road trips anywhere which involves a hotel stay here is what I end up bringing. It FILLS the back of my GMC Yukon XL. Kids take up the full 2nd row - and in the back...

Three suitcasesTwo toddler cribs, portable Baby BjornLarge stroller for twins (small ones are crappy and useless with two kids in them - they get stuck in everything)Diapers, wipes, snacks, foodDiaper bagCoats, gloves, hats, boots, etcLaptop, kids toys, the 85 other random things you need when bringing kids anywhere

genepool lifeboat:UberDave: It's a Trap!: Because every farker with 4 wheel drive thinks it makes them invincible in ANY weather condition. I had some dumb fark in an SUV go barreling by me in horrendously thick fog. I was unaware 4 wheel drive granted you x-ray vision.

They also think they can take any terrain. Personally, if I see questionable terrain, I park and walk or turn around.

If you don't know that you yield to other 4wd vehicles traveling up (when you are traveling down) and you haven't practiced picking lines, then don't take that road regardless of your vehicle's "power" or rated ability.

Example, and it's fairly obvious, but if you can't see the line in something like this:

In fact, an SUV faces the same risks as any car when turning or braking. In addition, engaging all four wheels doesn't help on wet or slushy roads, and it uses up more gas.

Yeah, um what the FARK does this have to do with SUVs getting in accidents? Topic. Stay on it...

"But when it gets very slippery, you begin to have problems with traction."

Not if you know what you're doing. Which means slowing down, increasing stopping times, AND NOT CUTTING PEOPLE THE FARK OFF.... Seriously, the last storm we had, I was driving on sheets of ice, doing just fine, and I had 2 different cars just pull out in front of me, close enough that would have been a problem on a dry road, and turned out to be about 2 inches shy of an accident on the icy roads.

Farking assholes.

Here we go: 4WD DOES increase traction. It increases it even on "very slippery" roads. Your 4WD can even help when turning, despite what this numbnuts says, since you have power to the turning wheels, as well as traction helping to push you through the turn. It won't help with braking, but it can help when using your engine/transmission to slow you down. You have all kinds of benefits that this moron can't figure out, but he DID get one thing right: overconfidence. That's the biggest culprit. People who think their 4WD makes that sheet of ice called a road suddenly equal the same road if it were empty and dry.

The weirdest thing about that last storm? I kept having people doing scary, dumb shiat and driving like morons. My buddy who drives on the other side of town had damp roads, but no snow and ice(Salt Lake is weird when it comes to weather), and THOSe people were driving like it was a farking blizzard. So yeah, snowy/icy part of town? Farking NASCAR. Dry, clear side of town? The Great Ice Storm of 2013 or something.

When I get the Jeep I want with the nice big tube bumpers, I'm just not going to be able to stop "in time" one of these mornings and hit one of these cock-knockers who pulls out in front of me. I'll be able to drive away, and he/she will be stuck with their own repair bill...

Sharksfan:In fact, an SUV faces the same risks as any car when turning or braking. In addition, engaging all four wheels doesn't help on wet or slushy roads, and it uses up more gas.

Perhaps engaging FWD doesn't help on wet or slushy roads in the DC Metro - but it (along with traction control) sure as hell does help in those conditions in states with "real" winter, such as MN where I grew up (9 miles from Canada) or WI where I currently reside.

4WD with slow speeds = win in most negative winter conditions.

Once you accumulate any real speed relative to the conditions you're pretty much screwed. The scariest driving experience I ever had was one winter day I stopped for gas on a long (4 hour or so) road trip early in the morning. When I came out of the gas station I noticed it had briefly rained - my windshield was wet.

I got back on the freeway and got up to speed just in time to see three cars spin out of control in front of me. That's when I realized the rain had frozen the second it hit the freeway, changing it into a skating rink. It's a REALLY bad feeling to realize you're going 65 or so and have zero traction.

Luckily I grew up with this sort of thing and had no curves in the road - I just eased off the gas and coasted until I was down to about 15 mph and then flipped it into 4WD and drove slow until I was out of it. I got passed numerous times by people only to see them in the ditch a mile or two down the road.

/CSB and all that

Had that EXACT thing happen to me about 3 weeks ago going from Cincy to Columbus.

Only I'm in an RX-8 with shiat tires and RWD only.

Cars spinning out to the left and right, SUV's upside down in the median... I will admit that I got sideways once or twice, but I didn't have too much trouble reaching my destination.

4x4 and AWD are excellent for moving forward, but I doesn't help you stop at all, so moving forward too quickly can be dangerous.

I saw a guy in an AWD Volvo buzzing past all kinds of traffic in one storm. He was doing great till some one pulled out in front of him. Then he hit the brakes and went into a spin and I almost hit him when he crossed my lane. He ended up ass-end into a deep ditch waiting for a tow.